Biography

Born: 03 May 1950 in Pontardawe, Wales

Genre: Singer/Songwriter

Years Active: '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, '00s, '10s

It was the British supermodel Twiggy who alerted Paul McCartney to the Welsh singer Mary Hopkin when Apple Records was looking for talent in 1968. The waifish soprano scored a huge worldwide smash with her first Apple single, the melancholy but rabble-rousing ballad "Those Were the Days," in late 1968; it actually knocked the Beatles' own "Hey Jude" out of the number one position in the U.K. Paul McCartney lent Hopkin a further hand by producing her first album and writing her second single, "Goodbye,"...